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FINALINTERNSHIPREPORTInternship in Sustainable DevelopmentPeriod: June through August 2011Personnummer: 19840413-5389September 92011Author:Clara Ruiz
INTRODUCTIONThe following report describes the activities carried out during a TFEDERATION FICEM-APCAC. The document contains information aboutthe organization and the responsibilities performed throughout theperiod between June and August 2011. More than a plain account oftasks, the objective of this text is to reflect upon the experiencescollected during the internship from the perspective of a MSc student inSustainable Development.The first part of the report offers an overview of the organization,followed by the working plan initially agreed upon with the Federationand approved by the University of Uppsala as a suitable internship.Following, it proceeds to describe in some detail the most relevantprojects carried out and their respective analysis. Finally, the reportwraps-up with a few closing remarks and conclusions from theexperience.1. THE INTER-AMERICAN CEMENT FEDERATION (FICEM-APCAC)The Inter- American Cement Federation is an organization based inBogotá, Colombia. The Federation represents and coalesces 42 CementGroups, 76 Companies and 221 Cement plants adding up to 10% of the
global cement production -excluding China- in 25 countries. Among itsmembers are also 21 Cement Institutes, Chambers and Associations in 16countries. The map below show the coverage span of the organization:Illustration 1: Members, Inter-American Cement FederationCourtesy: Inter-American Cement FederationThe mission of the Federation is to “Encourage the exchange ofexperiences and promote initiatives to drive the sustainable development ofthe Cement Industry.” The Federation’s stated objectives are1:-The promotion of sustainable development of the industry and theregion.-The promotion of good competition practices.-The strengthening of their representation before multilateralorganisms, authorities and the society.1FICEM-APCAC. “Que es Ficem-Apcac?. http://ficem-apcac.org/ficem.html . AccessedSeptember 9, 2011.
-The generation and dissemination of knowledge and experienceswith its members and similar organizations.-The promotion of the advantages of cement-based constructionsystems.In concrete, much of the Federation activities relate to networking andthe organization of Forums, Congresses and Assemblies that open up theopportunity for its associates to address issues and concerns related tothe organization’s fields of action. In the last two years, and inspired bythe World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s CementSustainability Initiative, the Federation has concentrated much of it itsefforts and built its strategic agenda around co-processing, climatechange and the cement industry in Latin America, Portugal and Spain.2. WORKING PLANThe main project to be carried out during the internship between June2011 and August 2011 was the organization of a trade exhibition ustry,particularly those located in America and Europe. The exhibition is heldon a yearly basis within the framework of the Technical CongressFICEM-APCAC. This year, the congress celebrated its XXVIII edition inSao Paulo, Brazil. As responsible of the trade exhibition I was in chargeof all the marketing, sales, customer service and logistics activitiesinvolved in the organization. As expressed by my internship supervisor
at the Federation, Liliana Silva – PR director, it was expected from me tostrengthen relations with participating suppliers and magazines fromprevious years as well as expanding the participation base by contactingnew potential participants, exhibitors and sponsors.Although the main and most important responsibility to be taken care ofwas the organization of the trade show, on the course of the internship Iwas involved in other activities concerning not only the TechnicalCongress, but also other fields of action, projects and activitiesdescribed in the following pages.3. XXVIII TECHNICAL CONGRESSAs explained before, the Technical Congress is held on a yearly basis. Itis a fixed date in the agenda of many production and technologymanagers from member cement companies in the Iberian-Americanregion and technology suppliers from all over the world. The event hastwo major purposes: first, the exchange of best practices in production,quarry restoration, environmental stewardship, organizational health andsafety and other technical topics and sharing of state-of-the-art relatedtechnology. Second, to provide a marketplace for technology buyers andsuppliers, creating attractive business and networking opportunities.As briefly stated above, my main responsibility was to take care of thetrade exhibition that takes place within the framework of the Technical
Congress. The show room is one, if not the main, source of financing theevent. Throughout the three months spent at the Federation I madecontacts, sold the exhibition spaces and sponsorship packages,coordinated the promotion material for the exhibitors, gistrations,programsforspouses, payments, the social agenda, the academic program (includingpaper call) and the congress’ website.Naturally, I did not carry out all these activities by myself. Spite of itsregional coverage, the actual staff of the Federation are only four women:the accountant, the secretary the PR Director and the General Director.Most of the activities are outsourced including the administration of thewebsite and the production of the booths and other material required forthe celebration of the event. In order to accomplish my tasks I largelydepended on good communication, coordination and leadership skills aswell as the timely cooperation of my partners located in Sao Paulo, Braziland Cali, Colombia. It was not always easy to respond to the exhibitor’srequests with the desired promptness and some confusion took place acouple of times due to operative and linguistic misunderstandings (withthe Brazilian partner). Nevertheless, these were minor obstacles and theoutcomes are very positive so far, according to the feedback receivedfrom some clients to this day.As a Sustainable Development student with a background in InternationalBusiness Management the organization of such an event was for interestto me because, from a business perspective, the case of the Technical
Congress is a very illustrative example of how, under the motto ofSustainable Development, an organization focuses its agenda (not only forthe congress but also of much of its main networking activities) on relatedtopics which are of priority to its members. Through events like these theprivate sector addresses key issues such as co-processing and CO2emissions sharingbest practices andstate-of-the-art technologyapplication and thereby attempt at improving their performance andminimizing the negative effects of their operations on people and thenatural systems.4. OTHER ACTIVITIESAlthough the main and most important responsibility to be taken care ofwas the organization of the trade show, on the course of the internship Igot involved in other activities concerning not only the TechnicalCongress, but also other fields of action, projects and activities. I wasassigned the translation of some brochures and material for upcomingevents, of a report on mercury emissions in the cement industry and ofthe anti-trust protocols implemented by the CEMBUREAU (the equivalentof the Federation in Europe) during their General Assemblies.I was also requested to make an analysis and consolidation of the resultsof the first survey on co-generation practices and legal regulations for
cement plants in Latin America and with the review of the Spanish versionof the PwC-FICEM-CSI “getting the numbers right project” contract.These additional tasks provided me with (new) technical aspects ofinterest. In particular, the analysis of sustainability reports andconsolidation of key performance indexes was a challenging task but alsoa good opportunity to learn the facts and implementation of reporting andcorporate transparency from the perspective of different companies asopposed to the recommendations issued by organisms like the WorldBusiness Council for Sustainable Development. As a SustainableDevelopment Student, this was a quite valuable experience from alearning perspective, as it required intensive research of technicalinformation on my own in order to understand and be able to criticallyassess the reports handed to me and, from that, elaborate and present aconsolidated brief for the General Director. The completion of this taskalso raised some issues regarding business approaches regardingcorporate social responsibility on the one hand, and data aggregationand the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) on the other hand.5. CLOSING REMARKSThe organization of the event, and in general working at the Federation,provided interesting insight of how is Sustainable Developmentinterpreted and addressed by large corporations and other organizations
such as the World Business Council for Sustainable Development WBCSD-.Simultaneously, it was a good opportunity to put in practice and developfurther negotiation and organizational skills and refresh some concepts infinances and logistics required for the organization of the event.Last but not least, it was a great opportunity for developing personalnetworking activities and making contacts which may prove of value inthe near future and to work with a fantastic team of very hard-workingladies.The present document may be uploaded as reference material forSustainable Development students at the Uppsala University Student Portal.Clara RuizStockholm, September 9, 2011
ANNEX 1: TECHNICAL CONGRESS FLYER
ANNEX 2: PRINT SCREEN - TECHNICAL CONGRESS WEBSITE
and approved by the University of Uppsala as a suitable internship. Following, it proceeds to describe in some detail the most relevant projects carried out and their respective analysis. Finally, the report wraps-up with a fe
